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Yuna, as usual, sat under the night sky and controlled the elements once again.
It had been a week since she started the daily mental exhaustion of controlling the elements and letting them run through various parts of her body.
Maybe because her body was still young and did not accumulate that much filth yet, after a week, she merely discharged a light-colored mucus, and after another week, she no longer discharged anything.
Yuna also started her next experiment, or rather, her next trial, which was to continuously absorb and direct the elements all day.
If she were to absorb and control too much, Yuna was smart enough to know that she would not be able to deal with it. Although her control of the elements became much easier and smoother with each night of practice, she was not yet at a level where she could absorb elements in large quantities all day long.
So, in the first few days, Yuna absorbed and controlled a really small portion—significant enough to not drain her of energy even if she controlled it for the whole day.
Little by little, Yuna increased her rate of control and absorption of elements inside her body, letting them nourish her plate and allowing some elements to run through every inch of her body.
Her vision did get better, her hearing also got sharper, and Yuna felt lighter and more energetic.
It takes 21 days to make a habit and 90 days to make it a permanent lifestyle.
Months passed, and Huin Town finally ushered in the rainy season.
One night, Yuna, who had now habitually started controlling and absorbing elements all day long in plentiful quantities, suddenly blacked out.
However, when she blacked out, Yuna did not lose consciousness. Instead, her consciousness became clearer and clearer.
In the dim and dark consciousness, small lights started to appear little by little—red, blue, green, and all other varied colors. Yuna, without needing to guess, had instinctive knowledge that the small balls of light were elements.
From then on, Yuna could, whenever she wanted, see the elements of various colors floating in the air.
Once she could see the elements, Yuna was able to see where more elements were floating around, and she discovered that elements existed most abundantly in trees.
Her rich imagination came up with a plausible reason.
Wood elements in the tree itself, water elements from absorbing water through the roots, earth elements from using the earth as a foundation to stand, fire elements from absorbing sunlight, and trees giving out oxygen while absorbing CO₂—a supplement for air.
"My genius knows no end."
Shamelessly proclaiming this, Yuna from then on liked to place her hand on a tree and absorb the accumulated elements from it.
Yuna felt that her days were going well, and she also started to feel at ease and learned to integrate quite well, especially with her grandfather taking good care of her.
"It's time to learn how to properly control and manipulate the elements."
Yuna, who could now unconsciously and continuously absorb elements, planned to take her next step, which was bending water, earth, fire conjuration, and air bending.
Unlike others who tried to learn various fancy ways of manipulating elements, Yuna simply wanted to enhance her abilities first, or maybe even give attributes to her elements.
For example, she didn't want to learn so-called fire meteor showers, air cutters, and other fancy moves. Yuna felt that those types of moves did not have much substance, except that they looked quite classy.
She could also learn those fancy moves after she felt that she could put more weight and meaning into the elements themselves.
Now, at a time like this, her years of reading fantasy novels came in handy once again.
Fire was not about fancy styles of control. Fire was heat. The greater the heat, the greater the strength.
So, Yuna compressed her fire conjuration and provided more and more heat.
Of course, nothing was ever that easy. Compressing heat and fire into a tiny flame drained energy and depleted the elements stacked inside her plate quickly. Thankfully, Yuna didn't need to deliberately absorb elements anymore and could already passively absorb them, so the depletion of elements inside her body could still be supplemented from an exterior continuous supply somehow. However, the drainage of energy would need more time to get used to and become easier as time went by.
Not to mention, for now, the rate of output is greater than the rate of input.
Anyway, it was not physical labor, and Yuna felt that she could cope with it better.
She didn't need to squeeze her brain hard, learn desperately, or even roll around training herself.
She also liked the fact that she was getting stronger in her own way. Albeit not knowing how much, how fast, or how well she was growing, it still gave her a small sense of satisfaction and accomplishment whenever she gained even a little strength.
Learning to bend elements was her small entertainment in a world where she could not read novels, watch dramas or movies, or browse social media.
Yes, life was actually very boring, but boring was still better than training hard like the protagonist.
"Let's start with fire."
Then she would slowly move on to other elements as well.
They said that at a certain level of heat, metal could be melted, and at another level of heat, even bones could be melted. With each level of heat, the things that could be done became greater and greater.
"Let's try to reach the level of metal-melting heat and then focus on other elements."
Although different metals have different melting points, Yuna at least wanted to produce heat intense enough to melt, for example, nickel metal.
Well, fantasy readers always dream of being able to do supernatural things, and Yuna was not spared from such daydreams either. Since she was finally able to accomplish that dream, Yuna also passionately learned how to do supernatural things at her own pace.